The moment Mike's condition took a turn for the worse,
"Everybody get back!"
Kara immediately raised her voice in warning, every inch of her tense and alert.
In truth, though, there were no workers left anymore.
Only Ian remained. At the moment, the boy was crouched beside a wastewater basin, repeatedly sniffing the toxic fumes rising from it, so he did not hear Kara's warning at all.
[Hydrogen Sulfide Poisoning]
Ian stared at the new negative status effect and looked deeply confused.
"This water's fine. It's just ordinary wastewater."
He had assumed the liquid in the basin would turn out to be some kind of bio-enhancement compound, but reality clearly had no interest in following classic plot beats.
"We need to get this man to a hospital."
Kara frowned. Compared to figuring out what was going on, she cared more about whether the worker lived or died.
"No, Aunt Kara, I think you may have the wrong idea about hospitals."
Ian brushed the dust off himself and looked at the worker sprawled on the ground, his flesh rippling and bulging in waves.
It was not that Ian was coldhearted.
He just knew hospitals had limits too.
"We can't just ignore him, can we?"
Seeing that the worker was only lying there and howling, repeating the same sentence over and over, Kara dropped her guarded stance and stepped forward to try to calm him down.
"Sir, I need you to stay calm. Slow your breathing..."
She tried to help the trembling worker sit up, but the moment she touched him, it was as if she disrupted some delicate balance inside his body.
"AAAAAAAH!"
The worker threw his head back and let out another scream of agony.
In the next second,
his whole body convulsed. His muscles swelled as if being inflated from within, and the sleeves of his work uniform tore open with a rip, exposing skin that had already turned completely green.
Before long,
that color spread across his entire body.
Sharp fangs grew from his mouth, and his white eyes filled with a cold, inhuman glare. Kara recoiled several steps at once, widening the distance between herself and the mutating worker.
"This... this isn't possible..."
Kara muttered under her breath in shock.
Even for someone who had seen a lot in her life, a mutation this fast was rare.
"ROOOOAR!"
Mike, or rather the creature that had once been Mike, threw back his head and bellowed. Thick green slime stretched between his fangs and dripped to the ground.
Wherever it landed, it burned little smoking pits into the concrete.
The thing had grown into a towering monster over ten feet tall. Its massive, knotted muscles bulged beneath skin glowing a sickly fluorescent green, looking as if they could unleash terrifying strength at any moment.
"Damn! A mini Hulk! So the DC universe has its own Hulk now? I haven't even turned green yet and I'm already the knockoff?"
Ian cried out in alarm as well. He saw the giant green brute lift a clawed hand, murder in its eyes, and swipe straight at his aunt.
"Leave it to me!"
Ian wanted to seize the chance to farm some experience.
Unfortunately,
he was not fast enough.
"Damn it! He's completely turned into a beast!"
Kara had no time to react to her nephew's nonsense. The mutated worker's claws came slashing in. She twisted aside, and the green talons scraped across the S symbol on the front of her suit.
A shower of orange sparks burst into the air.
"Huh. So that's the legendary chest of steel."
Ian was genuinely impressed by Kara's invulnerable body, though his praise did nothing to provide her with any positive emotional value.
"If you can't say something useful, then keep quiet!"
Kara's uppercut slammed into the mutant's jaw, sending him stumbling backward three steps. But he roared and charged again almost immediately. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Ian sprinting toward the fight, clearly trying to join in.
"Stay back!"
Kara kicked a large metal drum toward him. She did not use much force. She only meant to block Ian from getting involved.
Ian sidestepped it cleanly.
"No, look, your body of steel is amazing, sure, but my temporary limited-edition immortal body isn't bad either. Just let him hit me a couple times. Just a couple."
Ian's eyes were full of yearning for experience points.
Sadly, the world never seemed willing to understand visionaries.
Seeing Ian still trying to get into the middle of a dangerous fight, Kara kicked the mutant worker flying away from him.
Then, while the man was still roaring in pain as he flew backward, she shot after him at high speed and, in one smooth motion, dragged over a heavy chain and bound him to a nearby water tower.
This barely counted as a fight.
The green-skinned brute might have had enough strength to tear steel apart, but in front of a Kryptonian, he was about as threatening as a preschooler challenging a professional boxer. That was just how absurdly overpowered DC's favorite species was.
Ian watched with naked envy.
"Traitor! Woman! You betrayed your class!"
Apparently the mutated worker still retained some form of thought, though not a healthy one. He struggled against the chains while screaming abuse at Kara.
"Slavery! Oppression! The world shouldn't be like this! We should change it! Change it! For everyone! For glory!"
The mutant's eyes were wild with madness.
He thrashed violently.
The whole water tower shook.
Still, he was not strong enough to break free. He twisted and strained, trying to snap the chains, but they were too thick and he could not move more than a few inches.
It was honestly impressive.
Kara might have been young, but she clearly knew her way around tying someone up.
"A creature like that couldn't have been the one to kill my father."
Ian was baffled. Something Kara could handle this easily had no business being the thing that ended Superman.
"Hm?"
After dealing with the mutant, Kara dusted her hands off.
"No matter what, you were right. There's definitely something wrong with this place. Something seriously wrong."
She looked the transformed worker over again.
The whole thing felt deeply troubling.
If it really was some kind of contagious disease, like those fleeing workers had claimed, then it was impossible to guess what the people behind it were actually trying to do. At that thought, Kara pulled out her phone and started sending messages.
"Yeah, my reasoning really is top-tier. Guess the Joker won't get to be my doctor after all. His loss."
Ian noticed glowing green blood seeping out of the struggling worker.
It shimmered with an eerie fluorescent light.
This was the first time in the real world he had a chance to touch the blood of a superhuman lifeform. His eyes flickered once. Then he glanced at Kara's back as she stood there occupied with her communications.
"Opportunity always belongs to those bold enough to explore."
Ian offered a little philosophy to the universe, stepped closer, and slowly crouched down, reaching out to touch the blood that had dripped onto the ground.
At the same moment,
the system chimed.
[Incorrect Data Detected!]
[Incompatible!]
What it told him, however, was not what he wanted to hear.
(End of Chapter)
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